Odd Alchemy Book

Greetings and Salutations.

About two or three weeks ago, I purchased a book entitled "Alchemy & Mysticism : The Hermetic Cabinet" from my local bookstore.

A lovely little composium of illustrations and brief notations, and I was astonished to find a number of illustrations within that were personally relevant and introspective to my personal symbology...

But here's the conundrum.

I set the book down for a few weeks, and today, upon picking up the same book, I was unable to find the diagrams that had stuck me so deeply and thus inticed me to purchase said book.

Now, oddly enough - where these initial greyscale illustrations and mapping used to be, there is now a wealth of renissance era "biblical" illustrations of demons and devils wreaking havoc on mankind - something I have always had a profound distate for, yet never noticed upon my first through run through of the book.

The aforementioned illustrations of interest are no where to be found.

Now, granted - this is not a large and massive text - in fact, the entire collection runs no more than approximately 191 pages, and every page is an illustration or collection of such.

I am utterly perplexed I cannot find these images, and I have been going through the text page by page for well over two hours now, and still - I cannot find what I seek.

I have run through every possible scenario to explain the images I remember, yet cannot locate.

Has anyone else experienced a phenomena of this sort?

I am not the type of person to buy books lightly, nor am I the type to hallucinate material of this nature.

I am, at the moment, very upset that where there were once very descript, metaphysical illustrations of the universe and mans "place" within it done in a very succint and elevated style, that now there is nothing but these coloring book depictions of demonic influence over mankind.

I'm wondering if I just hapened upon the intial text during a transcendant point, and was thus revealed the original illustrations, and have since "fallen" to a lower intellectual incarnation - hence the "lower nature" of the pictures within.

Thank you for your time and attentions, and any challenges into the state of my mental health will be subsequentially ignored.

Peace and light.

GE.



[edit on 1/12/09 by GENERAL EYES]

I've never had this happen with a book, however, it did bring back a memory of something that happened to me about 12 years ago. One bored afternoon I decided to wander around town, in the little shopping district everyone referred to as "Uptown". Anyway, I wandered into a delightful store that was filled with every classic toy and book that I rmembered from my childhood. I had my son with me and I spent quite a while chatting with the owner and showing my son the different items that were so dear to me. I left happily that day and called quite a few people to tell them about the shop. My stepsister who lives near there was quite surprised because she'd never seen it nor heard of it. About two weeks later her and I tried to go back. I say "tried" because the shop was simply gone. In it's place was a hair salon. I thought maybe ai Had the wrong street, so we walked up and down every street in that little "uptown" area, which spanned about 10 city blocks, and the shop was no where to be found. I cannot explain it to this day.

Again, not quite the same as you mentioned, but similar enough to recall that to the forefront of my mind.

I'm wondering, did you look through the book before you bought it, put it down, and then later decided that you were going to buy it. If so, then you may have just ended up grabbing a different book with a similar title. There is another explanation I could give based off the book I'm currently reading, but as it's kind of out there I figured to try to get through the more likely possibilities first.

reply to post by Layla


I've been there as well! I've lost bookstores, cafes, and a host of interesting little shoppes and knooks over the years with no warning or explanation. It still saddens me to this day to think about those wonderful places simply disappearing.

reply to post by Xcalibur254


I've run through that possibility. However, this particular book was the only one of it's kind in the art section, and a real "stand out" from the majority of books they have in that area.

It's a fairly small bookstore, and there was no chance of it being confused with another text. In fact, I remember once I glanced through it and saw the images of interest that I gripped it tightly and did not let go of it until it was safely home with me.

There is no chance it was accidentally "replaced" after the fact either. My boyfriend never touches my personal library, and we rarely have guests in our home.

reply to post by Layla


That reminds me of Whitley Streibers very similar tale of how he was taking a friends child home in the car only to find himself in a completely unrecognizable town.

Time Slips ?

A "glitch in the matrix" my friends....plain and simple. What appears to be happening is that y'all are quite sensitive to time shifts.

Re: the drawings in the Alchemy Book...yes, you may have grabbed a similar book, and then again....you may have been shown what you were supposed to see at the time...

Of course, some may think my thoughts somewhat "different"....but then what is reality but manifestations of mind.

"Time" is a tricky little bugger...

~Holly

Eliade's 'Shamanism' is renowned for that.

I swear that book just grows, loses, adds, and switches pages. Eliade was one weird guy.

Demons are quite capable of making that kind of transmutation (material alchemy if you will)....they are playing with you. They can make the whole book disappear if they want to do so, also.

reply to post by Holly N.R.A.

Agreed - that's more or less the conclusion I'm coming to.

I won't deny that when I found this book I was in a "special space" or hyperaccelerated learning and coincidence all around.

It comforts me somewhat that I'm not alone in this perspective.

My "rational" boyfriend tends to become annoyed when I experience things of this nature, mainly because he himself goes to great lengths to remain distant from such occurances.

We were just discussing the possibility you mentioned - that it was a temporal anomaly that lent itself to a particular place in time/space and/or intellectual disposition.

I only hope I can re-attain that level of insight, for those illustrations were truely insightful and a wonderful meditation.

This is actually the other thought I had when I originally replied. I highly suggest people check out Laura Knight-Jadczyk's books regarding this. Interestingly enough, she quotes Eliade a lot in her work.

reply to post by GENERAL EYES

It doesn't remind me of a time slip.It seems more like a shift in reality.I have been watching this effect for a little over a year now.Small things,usually unnoticable things will change.The last four digits of my zip code changed,my banking account number changed(had the account for over 30 years).Even my wedding ring changed.My old ring had engraving around the outside,my new ring is totally smooth.
You should take closer note of things.Don't just shrug them off out of hand.From what I have observed I am shifting realities at decreasing intervals.Whereas when I first noticed the phenomon it took a couple of months,now it is taking just a few weeks for a shift.

Try to catch these "jumps" and keep up with the elapsed time in between them.

I've heard a bit about reality shifts over the past couple of months...I'm not an expert in that field, but I think I get the gist of it.

I just find it unsettling that I've spent the better part of my life looking for certain things, only to have them "disappear" whenever these shifts come about.

It really is an annoyance.

reply to post by GENERAL EYES


Have you checked if there has been more than one publication? You could be reading from 2 diffrent publications.

can you post some scans of the photos they sound interesting?

Looks like there are 2 versions:

The below is a comment in the review section for this book on Amazons website. Hope this helps :

Why do I give this book only 2 stars? I don't agree with the way this book is marketed. Watch out for ordering this book, as there are two books of the same title, author and publisher. What's the difference? One of the books has the word 'icons' on it and has only 192 pages from the original book. The original book has 712 pages. Check that the ISBN's match for what you are after. I made the mistake of buying this book from a site that did not list the page numbers and went off the title, publisher, author and picture on the front cover. Since first writing this review, I have now returned to say that I have the original 712 paged book and am very happy with it. When it comes to a book like this, why settle for second best?

source:

www.amazon.com...=tag_stc_cust_edpp_img


think this site shows some pages from the book, or so i gather?

www.taschen.com...







[edit on 12-1-2009 by MCoG1980]

reply to post by MCoG1980


Interesting...I shall look into this a bit further.

It's still unsettling to me that I had these images in my hand and after I had purchased the book because of them and now they are nowhere to be found.

I'll tell you one thing, if this is some ingenious use of magicks for the sake of making a few extra bucks off a starving student, I'm inclined to pursue my own personal studies and symbolism with greater ferverency than by abiding to the "whims" of a more accelerated Student or Master.

An annoyance, a parlor trick, and damned if I feel like playing that Game again at this point in my life. It simply isn't worth it, and causes me to become suspect to the validity of any author or provider of said informations if they insist on toying around with information in that manner.

Oi. And here I thought I had finally reached a level of transcendance from those sorts of childrens games.



*edit for an errant "u"

[edit on 1/12/09 by GENERAL EYES]

reply to post by GENERAL EYES


I think you got the one that is 192 pages, looks thike the full version ofthe book is 712 pages.

reply to post by MCoG1980


Yes - I suppose I bought the "primer" of only 192 pages.

But that still does not explain why several of the illustrations provided are NO LONGER THERE and thusly replaced by cartoonish imps.

Unless, of course - someone thinks they are being funny, cute, or trying to "teach me a lesson" I am already fully aware of.

I might have to take a breather from this thread, for my Draconian sensibilities are beginning to peak in a most unagreeable manner.

Please hold - as I shall return once I cool down a bit.

reply to post by GENERAL EYES


Try looking at the other version and see if the illustrations are found in there? It is worth checking, did the first book you looked at originaly seem thicker?



[edit on 12-1-2009 by MCoG1980]

reply to post by MCoG1980


I have checked your links, and unfortunately, the illustrations I'm seeking are not there.

The book I purchased has retained it's original size and shape, and in iteself, has not changed in any manner, aside from the replaced illustrations aforementioned.

Thanks for your assistance, I wish they could have yielded those missing works.



[edit on 1/12/09 by GENERAL EYES]